Selling Firewood

[southsoundtree]

I'm curious what people's tactics are for selling firewood and what their local wood heating/ firewood situations are.

A good amount of people in Olympia use the abundant supply of wood with wood stoves and fireplaces. I haven't run across anyone with an Outdoor Wood Burner.

I try to avoid handling firewood, but some people don't want all/ any of the wood from their trees. I charge to haul wood, or pass it along to my friend with a F800 dumptruck with a knuckleboom and grapples for accessible, skiddable trees. No money exchanges hands between he and I. He also helps me out, and gives me tools routinely, and tries to find me jobs, especially ones with accessible logs. I hook him up with logs. He gives me a break on loading/ hauling costs if I want the wood (might make some nice madrone slabs for wrap-around desks with an Alaskan mill!).

I'm stocked for this winter for myself/ wife (she even helped stack it the other day!). I've got a bunch of green maple/ madrone stacked for next year.

I'm going to try to have pre-arranged orders for green wood rounds thoughout the area, so if we have to buck up the wood to get them to the rigs, then it'll be one Load, one Unload, hopefully nearby on the way home.

How much do you charge, as a percentage of going market price for "split, seasoned, delivered wood", for green rounds? Green split?

I'm trying to sell 1/2 cords very locally to make more contacts that can turn into tree jobs to get more market share in my neighborhood. I can advertise on CL for free, and park a trailer with business signage at the base of our peninsula where everyone passes on their way into town.

 

[rfwoodvt]

You might want to check with your insurance company to find out what will happen to your rates.

We've got a booming market for wood here in the NE and we really gave it a good thought about firewood. What tipped the scales against it for us was the increase in our liability insurance.

At first I couldn't believe the rates we were being given but soon it started to make sense.

One chimney fire and the first questions to be asked are "who cleaned your chimney?" and "who sold you the wood?"

Never mind the fact that the homeowner didn't follow proper protocol, there would be a witch hunt looking for anyone remotely connected. I don't like being cornered for someone else's stoopidity.

And having a number of friends who are into property damage claims confirm the fact that that<u>is exactly</u> the way it goes around here we opted out.

We leave it to the customer to sell the wood and recoup some of their expense on the job. If they don't we have a couple of haulers who will take it away for us.

Perhaps when we have a larger yard to store logs and get a processing machine we'll consider it. But for now we are gonna hold off.

 

[southsoundtree]

Rick-

How do you put it to the people that want to pay for disposal? Are these haulers sub-contractors, or just completely independent of you?

Liability would seem much easier with no contact.

How much of your work is removal/ pruning?

 

[rfwoodvt]

Hey Sean,

Each season is different but usually we run 60/40 removals over prunes.

I try to encourage the customer to sell the wood on their own...takes me and my liability completely out of the loop and puts money in thier pockets. I simply tell them, the less material we have to handle, the lower the costs.

I do present the caveat though, that if they want it cut to stove length then that handling actually costs more than if we were to haul it away.

When we have hard wood that we are engaged to dispose of the customer is charged. It is built into the overall price and not a line item.

All the customer is told is that the wood will be disposed of by our wood hauler and that scheduling of the hauling may be a few days out from when we complete the other work.

We speak of hauling in the third person whether we have our subs do it or we do it. That way there are no surprises when the sub shows up to load.

When we have a cord or more we have a couple of haulers with dump trailers we have a contract with.

The contract specifies that they are hauling waste wood and that the final disposition of the wood up to them at their sole direction and discretion. Sometimes cash is paid, other times they do it for the wood.

I suspect it is for their own use but I don't ask questions.

We require certificates of insurance from them as they are considered Subs.

When we have soft wood that can't be used for firewood we'll try to get a pulp hauler in. I prefer to have the customer engage the hauler, again to take me out of the liab loop. But more often than not we end up getting the hauler ourselves. When we do, we charge for the hauling.

The pulp hauler is usually a no cost option for us, but if there is sufficient quantity of wood, they may be willing to pay. When this happens I really try to get the customer to make the arrangements.

Even though our contract stipulates that if we are hired to haul stuff away we become the owners of that stuff and have the right to do what we want with it, I've had more fights with customers when they found out we sold their "garbage" after they paid us to haul it away.

I figure let the customer sell the stuff and they won't bitch at me.

Anyhoo, don't let me discourage you from going into the firewood sales. It can be a great money maker. We just weren't in the position to make a go of it...yet.

 

[southsoundtree]

Rick-

Thanks for your insight.

Sounds similar.

I don't stipulate about what will happen with the wood. I just ask if they need wood/ brush/ both disposal. If they ask, I tell them that its pretty much a by-product, and with the expensed of a legal business, selling firewood is just a means of disposal that has about even input and output (plus it can make new customer contacts).

 

[hl_tree]

Around here wood is selling for anywhere between $175 and $225 per cord, but if you really look around you'll find people coming in at $150, and others at $250 - $300. That's for seasoned, dropped off. I've sold seasoned, split, stacked for $450 before without any trouble, but that was at the end of the season... and I had to carry it down a few stairs.

One idea that has been in the back of my head for a while now is to bust up wood on site, and sell it green... I'd have to sale for less, and the sell would be harder, but it would definately take some of the handling costs out. A few of my jobs require me to halve or quarter logs to get them to the truck anyway, so why not just firewood them from the beginning, load, and deliver. On a bigger job where there are a lot of trees, bring in a good splitter, and do the same, just quicker. Probably could dispose of a lot of waste wood like that... run it through a splitter to get chippable pieces, and walla, no more junk logs to pay disposal on.

 

[southsoundtree]

Rick,
As I think about this more. I'm surprised that they insurance company would go after the firewood suppliers, oh, but wait, lawyers involved. I never had considered such a problem.

Is Vermont a very litigious state?



I think that I will type up a little hopefully helpful flyer about
good wood burning practices,
splitting PPE,
drying/ seasoning,
creosote build-up,
annual inspections by a licensed chimney company,
and if the wood is dry and seasoned,
or if it will need to be seasoned before burning.

As with my work proposals/ contracts I have a spot for satisfactory completion and end of business. This could help such a potential lawsuit as someone falling over a piece of firewood in the driveway. Give them a copy and keep a duplicate. Triplicate NCR (noncarbon record, I think) is about 35 cents per white/yellow/ pink paper set.

Both good customer relations and CYA.

 

[rfwoodvt]

All good ideas, just remember, that some jackass somewhere will screw up and then try to hang you for what you didn't put into the disclaimer!